James Thomas Rook Jr.

3 hours ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

They have my name and email address. They have the KH address. They have all the information I have. 

John:

Short if vigilante justice, which often is not even remotely connected to Justice ... your job is DONE!

I am proud of you, after all these month's of discussion that wandered the known universe of thought, to "pull the trigger".

Sleep well at night, and forget about it.

You earned it!

4 hours ago, Outta Here said:

That foto of a floating flagpole falls on the first fence!

I enlarged the photo, and compared the flag pole to the flag and pole projected shadows, onto the Kingdom Hall's wall.

The photo MAY be a complete fake, but it is NOT probable, in my considered and educated opinion.

The larger and higher flag in the picture (there are two) is definitely behind the fence at the sidewalk or curb, and it projects exactly correct at the right angle, and the shadow on the Kingdom Hall wall  at the address numbers "2925" shown, is the right size and shape, and SPECULAR ALBEDO that it should be.

WHAT IS TRUTH SHOULD BE THE AGENDA ... NOT what is the agenda..

Sometimes, we just have to bet our lives, on the best guess, according to how we see the Universe.

4 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.

Agenda driven thinking is ALWAYS delusional ... whether you are on the "outside looking in" ... or the "inside looking out".

WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.

It is consistent with the fact that for 50 years in Mexico, Jehovah's Witnesses were a "cultural association", until the law was changed so they could own REAL ESTATE.

Straight from "central casting".

When I was a younger man, I used to bet my life that I understood parachuting as well as I understood that hitting the ground at 220 miles per hour is NOT GOOD ...

A series of ACTUAL life or death "leaps of faith".   I am USED to the idea.

It's all about how you rate the probabilities of this thing ... that thing .. or the other thing .... whatever it is, as being true, false, or somewhere in the middle.

Sometimes, the credibility gap is compensated for by a gullibility fill.

Sometimes the truth really hurts.

WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

The preponderance of evidence, as I saw it then, and as I see it now, as shown leads me to believe that it happened EXACTLY as Jack Ryan just posted.

WDS - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

12 minutes ago, Indiana said:

Serena Williams deviates from her staunch Jehovah Witness ‘no celebrations’ and takes her daughter out to Disneyland for fun

Though she is a staunch Jehovah’s Witness follower who never celebrates events, Serena Williams does not want her daughter Olympia Jr to miss out in life.

This is a fallacious premise .... reading some of her statements she actually says SHE IS NOT, a "staunch Jehovah's Witness".  (massive paraphrase ...)

I get the impression she is not even baptized ...  ( anyone REALLY know?)

She agrees with some stuff ... and not others ... sorta like eating parts of a fish.

"But frankly, Scarlett ... I don't give a damn." - Rhett Butler - "Gone With The Wind"

30 minutes ago, Anna said:

You may have photos, but you don't know who put the flag there...do you? Makes me think the same group that took the pictures perhaps....?

The picture I saw had the Chilean Flag behind the metal bars in the windows, behind the glass, inside the building, facing out, and there was a high steel rod fence with a gate around the property, with the flagpole on the property, on the grounds.

It may have been put there by Eskimos for all I know.

... but that is not probable.

25 minutes ago, BillyTheKid46 said:

Try to keep up with the conversation as not to be seen as uneducated. Maybe someone like you buddy James can educate you. Ask him to IM you the info just like JWinsider and others.

I don't know anything other than what was in the news several years ago ... that on a particular national holiday, Chile requires  Churches to display the National Flag for that day on their building or flag poles ... and the Elders put one inside the building, showing through the windows, and put one on a flag pole (what's a Kingdom Hall doing with a flag pole ...anyway..?), to avoid paying a fine, somewhere around $240.

I have several photos on my hard drive somewhere, from several angles.

That's all I know.

It allllllll boils down to this .... do we allow ... and overlook ...  a certain amount of BAD ART ... in order to have harmless FREEDOM AND LIBERTY?

I will.

... rather have harmless Freedom and Liberty AND good art ... but like the singer "Meat Loaf" once sang  ... "Two Outta Three, Ain't Bad".

You would be completely surprised in many cases if scriptures were read in CONTEXT .... a half page before, and a half page after.

3 hours ago, Melinda Mills said:

(Leviticus 19:28) “‘You must not make cuts in your flesh for a dead person, and you must not make tattoo markings on yourselves. I am Jehovah.

In Real Estate evaluation there are four things that are the essentials .. all else is secondary ...."Location, Location, Location .. and cash flow".

Context.

In conveying an idea to someone else, it's all about "Presentation. Presentation, Presentation .. and interest."

Context.

In Leviticus 19:28 these things are ALSO true..... WHAT IS THE CONTEXT?

The CONTEXT is not about decorations and minor surgery, medically necessary or cosmetic.

10 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

...... The tattoos mentioned in the Bible refer to markings that would identify one as a member of a band of barbarians, soldiers, religious groups, clan, tribe, or cultural background. ... anything that would show fealty, association or legionship with elements of human or spiritual association CONTRARY to the principles and concepts of that approved by Jehovah God.

It is embodied in the FIRST of the Ten Commandmenta ... which in principle covers the entire subject of tattoos.

I should have also added the MOST important element that Leviticus was talking ABOUT ....  pagan religious rites and practices.

And that unknown woman in the picture with those .... things ... on her eyebrows. ... it looks like she has fuzzy-wuzzy catipillars covering up zippers.

WDS   - the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

1 hour ago, admin said:

But there are larger forces at work: Gun demand (especially in brick-and-mortar stores) has been under pressure—U.S. firearm sales fell 12.4% year-over-year last month, estimates Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting.

Probably just a temporary sales glitch.  When Obama was elected it caused the immediate acquisition of about  Three Million new guns into the hands of people, many who already had several, or many.  I appreciate Obama SO MUCH!

... best gun salesman of the 21st century!

It depends on each individual person ... that's why in the Christian Congregation ... we are encouraged to develop a TRAINED conscience, depending on insight and rationality.

The tattoos mentioned in the Bible refer to markings that would identify one as a member of a band of barbarians, soldiers, religious groups, clan, tribe, or cultural background. ... anything that would show fealty, association or legionship with elements of human or spiritual association CONTRARY to the principles and concepts of that approved by Jehovah God.

It is embodied in the FIRST of the Ten Commandmenta ... which in principle covers the entire subject of tattoos.

You have to use some common sense ... which in perusing and perusing a religious agenda ... is NOT all that common.

Under the Christian "rules", we no longer have to sacrifice animals on an alter ... we can eat Bar-B-Que and pork chops, and a LARGE list of other things forbidden by COMMON SENSE to benefit mankind in its collective infancy years when thinking about societal safeguards was almost completely unknown, collectively.  

There is a difference between knowing a "rule" or regulation .. and knowing or NOT knowing the mind of God, and WHY he decided to restrict this, that or the other thing.

Now, since Jesus has expounded on the underlying PRINCIPLES of the Law ... we should slowly, more and more each day, understand WHY Jehovah wants, or wanted ... or even CARED about what we do, or used to do.

That's why we HAVE a conscience.

I think tattoos  are ugly, and inappropriate, and don't have any, although I am sometimes fascinated by "possibilities", and I am curious and ask about other people's INK when I see them. They usually appreciate the interest.

They think it looks good, and it certainly attracts attention.   Sometimes people are so terribly starved for human attention that they will do all kinds of stuff to try and get some .... necessary to many people as food, water and air is.

The uglier a person is, the probability is that they NEED permanent makeup.

Or some really serious plastic surgery.

... and now,  a cryptic "blast from the past", or, as Monty Python once said:  " ... Something different ..."

Having done land surveying for more than 30 years, I appreciate the value of large navigational markers.   Around your home you may have wooden stakes in the corners or your lots, or metal pins in the ground, but I have installed markers that cost $20,000 and required  you to dig holes 10 feet deep to set the concrete foundations for the markers ... for one point the size of a tack ... that you could see from afar off.

Several years ago I went to Norway, and across land and sea, on roads and islands between fjords, there is a massive monumentation system that defines and marks the Arctic Circle .... a THEORETICAL circle that most people do not understand why it's important, at all.

It must have cost at least  a billion dollars to install all of these .... not counting the surveying that located where they should go.

Sometimes ..... things that MOST people do not understand, are very important to those that do.

This is why I think WDS , the sword that cuts both ways ... is so very, very dangerous.

Sometimes it takes a REAL ARMY (Spiritual or physical) to fight against overwhelming forces. 

Some people are experts at everything ... but too few to mention.

THAT is REALITY ....

Each person has to decide for himself or herself, when the evil that ALL men do, outweighs all the GOOD that some men TRY to do.

In France, when the Allied Forces invaded on D-Day, to destroy the Nazis, they bombed and destroyed many innocent civilians to get rid of the cancer that was Nazism.  

This is called "Collateral Damage".

One French man was hiding in his basement, when Allied Bombs, attempting to kill Germans, destroyed his home, and trapped him in the basement, injured, and he died of his injuries, but also thirst and starvation.  In the dark.

He left behind his skeletonized  remains, and  a THANK YOU LETTER TO THE ALLIES ... for rescuing France from a great cancerous evil, even though it resulted in his  PERSONAL death, ... and he died slow, and alone. In the dark.

From time to time, and over long periods of time, I have been damaged by incompetent and ignorant Elders ... but I think the perspective of the Frenchman is the correct one to have ... and that is the one I have, and I am sticking with it.

I didn't like it then, and  I don't LIKE it now ... but reality is what it is ... and I am determined NOT to think like a petulant, whiny child, expecting mere mortals to be more than what they really are.

Or, as fictional Vulcan  First Officer Spock once said in a Star Trek movie ...

"Sometimes, the needs of the many are greater, than the needs of the few .... or the one."

WDS .... the sword that cuts BOTH ways.

24 minutes ago, Anna said:

11 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

.... however, as I told my CO one day when he asked what I thought about the organization "I can do without Caleb and Sophia".

Who knows, the CO might have felt the same....

He grinned, but said "Well.... they have their place ..."

I rolled my eyes, but did not say anything more.

21 minutes ago, Anna said:

The inuksuk has no such significance at the Canadian Bethel. It would be like saying we can’t use salt because some religion blesses it and makes it holy. Now it would be totally different if this item was made to have spiritual significance from its creation, like your aforementioned examples. But it is clear that the inuksuk originally had no such significance.

I agree with that.

BUT ... it is a crystal clear and dramatic example of "WDS" *, on the part of those AGENDA driven people.

With bad detectives .... seeing is believing.

If they had not BELIEVED something ... they would not have seen it.

* ( _"WDS" = "Watchtower Derangement Syndrome" - the sword that cuts both ways.)

36 minutes ago, Anna said:

7 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

"I can do without Caleb and Sophia".

And you know why, because if you were into Caleb and Sophia that would be really weird, since you are an adult.

I am 72 years old... and am a BIG fan of Pooh Bear!

You can do better, John?

1 hour ago, JOHN BUTLER said:

So, is God going to accept a fake organisation in which people are only interested in saving themselves ?

It is not fake... there is no substitute that is better.

It's just that it LOOKS fake to reasonable people, because of human greed.

Weapons good ..... crucifixes not good.

Even the Apostles had their personal weapons at the Memorial.

(Luke 22:36)

14 minutes ago, Shiwiii said:

oh this is getting fun. 

15 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

Next thing you know, perhaps a male teacher would come to class and teach the children in a dress of some sort.

Like Jesus did when he taught in the Synagogue?

Hahahhahaa!